


your hawking hound's blood

by sharivan



Category: English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Francis James Child
Genre: Fratricide, Gen, Murder, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharivan/pseuds/sharivan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David's mother was no stranger to blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your hawking hound's blood

_What’s the blood on the point of your sword?_  
_Oh son David, my son David_  
_What’s the blood on the point of your sword?_  
_Promise, tell me true._

_That’s the blood of my grey mare_  
_Oh lady mother, my lady mother,_  
_That’s the blood of my grey mare  
_ _She would not rule by me._

_Your grey mare’s blood was never so red_  
_Oh son David, my son David,_  
_Your grey mare’s blood was never so red  
_ _Promise, tell me true._

Rachel was not a young woman. She had seen the last of her own courses after decades of cleaning up her own blood. She married a husband and buried him, tended to home and land, delivered lambs and children. She bore children and staunched their wounds. Any beauty she might have possessed was gone leaving only her behind, stout and lined and unbowed.

Rachel stood in the doorway of her own home, a house which had known no other mistress since she was old enough to reach the upper cupboards, and her son stood before her with a bloody sword in his hand.

_That’s the blood of my hawking hound_   
_Oh lady mother, my lady mother_   
_That’s the blood of my hawking hound_   
_She would not rule by me._

_Your hawking hound’s blood was never so clear_   
_Oh son David, my son David,_   
_Your hawking hound’s blood was never so clear_   
_Promise, tell me true._

Women who lived as long as Rachel were not strangers to blood. They might as well be strangers to wheat, to oats, to all the staples that keep body and soul together.

David’s sword was smeared with the stuff, half-dried, unmistakable. And yet. A comfortable acquaintance with blood was not the same as knowing the shape of the body it had spilled from at five paces.

“Mother?”

“Oh, David.” Such a foolish boy, never quite willing to make sense of what was before him.

Rachel was not a young woman, and her eyes were starting to fog. Was the blood too red, too clear? She had seen blood spilled in violence, in anger, blood spilled alongside infants born dead, limbs amputated over infection.

The blood David had spilled smelled too sharp, too acrid, to come from any mare or hound.

_That's the blood of my brother John_   
_Oh lady mother, my lady mother,_   
_That's the blood of my brother John_   
_He drew his sword to me._

_What did you fall out about?_   
_Oh son David, my son David,_   
_It's all for a little holly bush_   
_That'll never grow to a tree._

_I'll set my foot on a bottomless boat_   
_Oh lady mother, my lady mother,_   
_Set my foot on a bottomless boat,_   
_Sail upon the sea._

Such stupid children she had raised, so quick to turn on each other over trifles and race to their deaths.

(Rachel was thirty before she killed her own sister, dosing her wrong for her labour so her blood thinned and flowed too fast for anyone to stop it. A tragedy, of course, but women would die that way. The cost of original sin, not anything to wonder at.)

David left her the next morning, taking a bag and a horse with him. Rather a waste if he was only going to throw himself into the sea, but young men would have their own ways.

She hummed as she walked out to the holly. Gathered her firstborn, let a bit of her own blood join the dried stuff on his chest.

“You’ll do my will,” she promised, helping the corpse to its feet, “til the sun and moon meet in yonder glen. And that will never be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty fond of the June Tabor & Oysterband version of this song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XILzqPc5P5g


End file.
